My latest “crusade” (as Jen puts it) has been about New Age beliefs. I don’t disguise my contempt for this “spiritual” movement and i had too much to say to put in a blog.

Over a week i spoke with 24 people over the phone, email and Facebook to a) ascertain their beliefs, b) examine their attitudes, and c) scrutinise the basis of their “faith”. One of these conversations was publicly featured here, and also on the Textual Ecstasy forums.

What i found disturned me deeply as even some of the most intelligent and sound-minded friends of mine seem to lose all sense of reason and have such a worrying ignorance of basic science when it comes to matters of spirituality.

I don’t see why i have to be tolerant as i don’t subscribe to a belief system that requires it. I have plenty of time for Buddhism, Islam and other faiths, but what i don’t have time for is ignorance and stupidity.

The paper discusses:

• How the New Age “belief” system is vacuous and collapses under the slightest scrutiny;
• That ancient “knowledge” and “wisdom” is nothing but ancient ignorance of 21st century science;
• The gross misappropriation of scientific principles such as Mass-Energy Equivalence, Chaos Theory, String Theory and Quantum Mechanics;
• How the meaningless language, obscurantism and vague terminology misleads the gullible;
• That the principles of Relativism are fundamentally flawed and meaningless;
• That the arguments used as a basis for New Age belief are laughable;
• How mysticism is driven by rebellion against the Church and patriachal culture;
• Blatant fraudulence, silliness and outright quackery that isn’t mysterious at all.

Topics, concepts and practices featured include:

Alchemy, Angels, Astral projection, Astrology, Auras, Automatic writing, Biorhythms, Chakras, Channeling, Chaos magic, Charismatics, Clairvoyance, Color Therapy, Crystals, Divination, Dowsing, Dreaming, Extra-sensory perception, Faith Healing, Feng Shui, Homeopathy,, I-Ching, Kabbalah, Levitation, Magick, Mediumship, Necromancy, Neo-paganism, Nostradamus, Numerology, Oracles, Ouija, Palmistry, Past life regression, Psychic phenomenon, Psychokinesis, Psychometry, Reiki, Reincarnation, Remote viewing, Scientology, Shamanism, Sorcery, Spirit Guides, Synchronicity, Tarot, Telepathy, Wicca.

You can download the paper as a PDF here:
http://www.azcameron.co.uk/The.New.Age.Of.Stupidity-Alex.Cameron.pdf (270Kb)

The material itself is released under the Creative Commons License, so you are free to distribute as widely as you as long as i am given attribution as the author.

And of course, the obligatory soundtrack, “People Of The Sun“, by Rage Against The Machine:
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